The Renaissance Man

@Leo Gura since you recently wrote a blog article on learning, what I've written above may be interesting. It's pretty much an introduction to models that map the complexity of your cognitive processes, and they've been used to evaluate learning outcomes (the SOLO taxonomy is the main model I cited) because they're able to reflect quite accurately your level of understanding. And since we're interested in understanding, this can be quite relevant. Especially the concept that I've learned from Justin Sung that if you purposefully operate at a more complex cognitive level, you'll speedrun both learning (as in remembering) and understanding. His model (I've taken his course and studied meta-learning for 2 years) is actually is built on how survival works, and not dogma or parroted understanding techniques, although this is not directly apparent from watching a couple videos of his on YT (I'm still talking about Justin Sung). There really is a lot of juice to be extracted if you deeply understand how the mind learns anything. How it puts anything from being outside, to being long-term memory. And you'll find that the same principles that deeply encode beliefs in your mind are the same that make you remember stuff at school. It's the same "learning system" that's used, so I suggest anybody reading this to explore this topic because it's quite the meta-skill.

I've created a personal version of cognitive processes as well. I noticed three clear stages of thinking. Here are the names I gave them. Explicit: you are only able to operate, almost parrot, the data as it was given to you. Hopefully you're not misinterpreting, which would be even worse. There's no original thinking. You are able to apply the knowledge in context that are identical to what was taught. For example if someone teaches you to count to 5, you can extend the pattern to 10, but you've just done more of what was taught. If you're studying history, you'd be able to memorize what you learned, recall facts, but not to think critically or develop any serious understanding. Application: as I said with the math example, you're just able to extend exactly what was taught, and nothing more. Implicit: I call this level implicit because you're now able to identify the core ideas and relate them to each other into a kind of network, a model of understanding of the topic. It's implicit because not every connection was explicitly taught. From this stage your understanding of the topic is deep, clear, you clearly understand the dynamics of the subject. But you're still thinking from within the subject. You're unable to step outside of it to evaluate or think critically. Application: since you have a deep grasp of the first principles, you're able to create and extrapolate new connections or original ideas from combining the principles in original ways. You're able to work in new contexts, which is the key difference from the explicit stage. Transcendental: Here you're going meta for the first time. You're stepping outside the subject, you're able to question the knowledge that was taught. For successful questioning implicit understanding is kind of necessary. But the cool thing, just as Justin Sung teaches, is that if you try to straight up operate at the implicit level, you'll automatically work at the explicit too. And I assume this kind of works at the transcendental as well. Application: Now you're able to innovate, to truly do something that was impossible from within the implicit. You're drawing from outside of it. At each stage, there can be sub-stages. If you're barely into implicit, you'll start to see some of the influences between concepts, but it will be hard to have a full mental model. If you're barely transcendental, you'll start to be able to be critical of the knowledge, but you'll struggle to fully evaluate it. So the level of comfort and ability to manage such massive amounts of information can increase within stages as well. I haven't put anything beyond transcendental because it would be transcendental 2, transcendental 3, and so on. Same principle of going more and more meta.

The author suggests that to operate at a higher level you need "more ram". And this can be done in two ways: either genetics, or if you've become familiar with basic concepts enough you can start to manage more. What I found though, is that by having some powerful frameworks like knowing about self-deception, knowing about these models themselves and their fallacies, knowing about "not-knowing", knowing about "going meta", etc, I'm able to operate at a higher level even if I'm not familiar with the concepts yet. This means RAM, or working memory, must not be the only factor at play. And I hypothesized that having a "language", like you stated @Carl-Richard, could enable you to operate at a higher level. I'm highly interested in resources on the topic if you have any.

Here are some examples from the book: ### Example Question >*Why is the side of a mountain that faces the coast usually wetter than the side facing the interior?* 1. "Dunno." 2. "Because it rains more on the coastal side." 3. "Because when we go to our cabin that's right on the coast, it's always wetter there than on the road crossing the mountain that gets us there. Never fails, my Pop says. I reckon we ought to move; like get us a cabin for hunting which is better'n fishing anyway. Besides, I hate rain." 4. "Because the sea breezes hit the coastal side of the mountain first." 5. " 'Cos air from the sea gets kinda damp, like fog and that. It settles on the coast first and so it rains and all the wetness falls on the coast and there's none left for the other side of the mountain." 6. "Because the prevailing winds are from the sea which is why you call them sea breezes. They pick up moisture from the sea and as they meet the mountain they're forced up and get colder because it's colder the higher you get from sea level. This makes the moisture condense which forms rain on the side going up. By the time the winds cross the mountain they are dry." 7. "This is likely to be true only if the prevailing winds are from the sea. When this is so, they pick up the water vapor evaporated from the sea which is carried to the mountain slopes where the damp air mass rises and cools. Cooling causes the water vapor to condense, and being heavier than air, the water droplets deposit as rain. Not only is the wind now drier, it is possible that it is carried up the mountain further where it is compressed, which warms it like a bicycle pump gets warm. It is therefore less saturated than before for two reasons. The effect is like the chinooks experienced on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Canada in winter. If there was no mountain, there would likely be no difference between the coast and inland. It all depends on the land features and the prevailing wind and temperature conditions. If these differed, then the energy exchanges would be different, resulting in quite a different pattern." Refer to the image at the bottom for a single table of all the stages and all the characteristics capacity, relating operation, closure and structure. #### Capacity **Capacity**: the amount of working memory or attention span (not in terms of length, in terms of attention capacity, so... working memory) that the different levels of SOLO require. *One needs to think about more things at once in order to make a relational or extended abstract response than one does to make a unistructural response.* - For example, at the prestructural level consider the brain as only having one "bit" of RAM. This is why cue and response are confused. - Example 1 has no relevant data to begin with. - Examples 2 and 3 are prestructural. - The simplest relevant response requires separation between the cue and one relevant aspect to form the response. In other words, to bear the question in mind while he's answering. - Example 4 is unistructural: relates one datum to the question. - Example 5 is multistructural: relates 2+ concepts or data to make the question - Example 6 is relational: interrelates the concepts, which act as extra data - Example 7 is extended abstract: The student here not only needs to encode the *given* information, but he comprehends its relevance to overriding abstract principles, from which he can deduce a hypothesis and apply it to a situation that's not given. #### Relating Operation **Relating Operation**: The way in which the cue and the response interrelate. - Prestructural: no interrelation. - *Denial* is the simplest, by which the student refuses to become seriously engaged in the task (example 1) - *Tautology* simply restates the question. This should not be confused with rote learning, because it's not about repeating the original *data*. Restating the question can never be adequate. (example 2) - *Transduction* is more a "guesstimate" than a guess, in that the student attempts to differentiate a relevant response but slips up because he does not form an adequate logical basis for his selection of a response (example 3). The jump is instead made on a perceptual or emotional basis, taking as relevant what strikes him most forcibly at the time. - *Induction* involves correctly drawing a general conclusion from particular instances. Relating a particular aspect or point given in the data to a conclusion. - A unistructural response, then, involves ascribing rain to only one of the relevant features. - A multistructural response faithfully marshals several of the relevant features but fails to link them up. This typically contains "and, and so, and also". - The relational response gives an overall concept or principle that accounts for the various isolated data that the multistructural response contains, but sticks within the data and concepts already taught about the formation of the rain. - The extended abstract response goes beyond induction on the basis of the data and introduces true logical deduction: "yes, the phenomena is due to the principles of heat exchange. Now, given the details of prevailing winds from the sea, and the natural topographical details that are described, then rain will precipitate in the prescribed area. But under other conditions the outcome would probably be different. We see the same principle operating in the quite different context of the Canadian Rockies. . . . " - We have the introduction of an *abstract* principle (principle of heat exchange) which was not given directly in the data - The *deduction* from that principle that certain events would follow, and the testing of this deduction against the data - The introduction of an *analogy* (the Rockies in Canada) that was compatible with that principle but not given in the data and consequently - The outcome may be *indeterminate* (there is an absence of closure - events might have been different under different circumstances) #### Consistency & Closure **Closure**: the need to come to a conclusion of some kind **Consistency**: the need to make consistent conclusions so that there is no contradiction either between the conclusions and the data, or between different possible conclusions. *The greater the felt need to come to a quick conclusion, the fewer data will be utilized, thus the probability that the outcome will be inconsistent with the original cue, the data, or the outcome is increased.* - Prestructural: very high closure and very low consistency - Unistructural: the response seizes upon the first relevant dimension that comes to mind, but at least it's relevant. Those responses can be correct, but quite inconsistent with each other, like *the blind men describing an elephant*. - Multistructural: closure is determined when more aspects are perceived, but since these aspects are not interrelated, inconsistency may result. Two responses at this level may utilize the same amount of data but come to quite different conclusions. - Relational: the student waits until he sees all the aspects and then interrelates them to make a coherent whole. He will come up with a definite answer (closure), possibly an excellent one for that context, but it will not do for other context (an overgeneralization may be made). - Extended abstract: Sets out principles and heavily qualifies their application to a particular situation. Since consistency is maximal, the student may feel it appropriate to leave the question relatively open. #### Structure A diagrammatic representation. 3 types of data that can be used for a response: - **X** - Irrelevant data - **●** - Relevant data contained in the original display (lesson for example) - **O** - Data and principles that are not given but which are relevant, hypothetical, and often implicit in the data - Prestructural - An attempt to link the cue with the response by an irrelevant feature - Unistructural - Takes one relevant datum or feature to link the cue and response - Multistructural - Takes several data or features - Relational - Ties up the relevant data in a conceptual scheme - Extended abstract - Takes up all the relevant data and their interrelations and subsumes them under a hypothetical abstract structure that can enable deduction to apply to instances or data which were not included in the original display. Consequently, the student giving an extended abstract response can entertain alternative outcomes: he is not forced, as are others, to come to a definite closure or conclusion.

@Carl-Richard wha book? I'm quoting the first lines of your first message. I've been interested in finding such a book. I've been thinking about this phenomenon, not because it's possible to overestimate your level, but to purposefully engage more often in higher levels of thinking, even from a lower stage. I'll also share an illuminating resource: the book on SOLO taxonomy by Biggs. There's also a wikipedia article, but it's really not in depth. It's a model to evaluate the cognitive complexity you're operating at, and it was designed originally to evaluate learning outcomes. The book has plenty of examples of each stage (I've included the image of the stages below). I've learned about this from Justin Sung, and his method is truly revolutionary. I'm quite serious on this topic (I call it meta-learning) and I've been studying it for 2 years, I've taken Justin Sung's course as well, so I'm not just basing my opinion on his YT videos. His approach to studying is pretty much to propel you as fast as possible to the higher orders of thinking. He uses the SOLO taxonomy, but also Bloom's taxonomy (you can find the book too on it), which is a model to categorize cognitive processes, to classify what is considered as "higher order thinking".

@NoSelfSelf make a distinction between special as in a "deep experience" and something you just physically want. By not special I think Leo refers to the first one, and you're referring to the second. No dissonance there.

@Raze I was mindful this afternoon and found the little rule useful in a few occasions. It's not really about skipping 10% of all videos. It's more so that even when the intro is clearly useless, you still sit through it mindlessly. For me it sometimes is like that. The more flexible rule here is: whenever you notice there's no info in that bit, skip it! And even if it's that simple, it's so easy to be mindless and forget

Leo you clearly have a really high regard for Wilber's work. You've covered Spiral Dynamics quite extensively and the 9 stages of Ego Development.

He has wrote 20 books, everybody suggests to start from a different one, his theory has multiple lines, models, and so on. It can be confusing. We could talk about an introduction to the whole theory, like a single video, or even a full series.

TLDR: I'm having problems with a new kind of "down" phase that I didn't experience before. I want to make a distinction between advanced and newbie ruts (feeling quite low in motivation and productivity to do productive stuff in life): - The newbie exits his rut by learning about a new, flashy concept, protocol, motivational strategy, a new guru. - The advanced has lived that cycle too many times, and feels like "he has already tried". Note: I'm not talking about hopelessness. It's more about confusion because you don't know how to get back into your higher self, plus apathy towards all the self-help advice, because after years, you're still there (yes you've made lots of progress, but you're currently in your lower self and fallen into a lot of bad habits again). -------------------- I'm curious to hear about your experience, I'm still exploring this new problem. I undersand it's very easy to give me a solution like: look into the resistance, accept it, let go of it... or put in healthy habits again... or recognize the problems with this lifestyle, etc. The problem of the advanced rut is that the advanced is already familiar with those, and while this could actually be good advice, it's useless from his current low state (hopefully it makes sense?). You may never have experienced this, it's a totally new things for me and I've been working with motivation for 4-5 years. Here's some hypotheses I have: - If you wait long enough, even the long ruts will become so painful that a new positive, long cycle, fueled by the new lessons will arise. So... don't worry about it too much - There are ways to keep your consciousness and wisdom elevated overall, but I don't really know any powerful tools. Sure, good habits, staying healthy, are helpful, but they won't really keep you "mature". - Another solution I thought of is having a mentor, or a sort of higher level of wisdom keeping you accountable. But I don't have one, and even having an imaginary one (which would be your logic) is good on paper, but in practice you won't keep the habit, so again, I don't have a solution on this plane. - I'm also trying to think of ways to quickly re-gain consciousness, but I find my mind being super easily overwhelmed and jumping to the conclusion "we already know this won't be effective", distorting and simplifying the lessons too much to keep the low state (hopefully it makes sense). And even though I'm aware of this kind of self-deception, the emotional resistance in the moment is still overwhelming, so it's trickier than just noticing it.

@Something Funny Thank you now I get your point better. Your main points were: No matter how many girls you approach, how successful you are with pickup, how much sex you have, you will still have the same low, conditional self-esteem and luck of self-love. It will never be enough. There is no drug that will make you a great software engineer for example. All that is stopping you is fear and lack of confidence. So in other words, there's no need for pickup. I actually agree with you on your first point, and on the fact that no drug can make you a great engineer. But I disagree on how you go about finding happiness (point 1) and getting good with girls (point 2). Point 1: that's a matter of the whole pursuit of dating then, not pickup. The issue is when you become stuck in the endless rat race of never being satisfied with women, or money. Pickup is one of many ways of meeting women, and what drives you to meet them could be endless sex, or the pursuit of deep love. With making that point you're not actually critiquing the method. Second point, as I also said, alcohol won't make you great at pickup. It will make you better, but not great, if you suck in the first place. A shy person will suck at public speaking. A shy person that has drank some alcohol (not wasted) will be better. A skilled person will be far better than both. Can we agree on that? Quite apparent. You can't claim that communication involves no skills involved, that's just false. So if you want to be great, and there are solid reason for that, and we're back to point 1, how would you go about doing that? Second part of the second point: fear. Fear is a HUGE obstacle to overcome. Much harder than just sitting down for months to study engineering. Go tell a person with PTSD that he "just has to overcome his fear". Well, duh? Not saying it can't be done, but we have to acknowledge it's really hard. Also, experience is a great way to reduce fear and increase confidence.

Anyway, maybe I am actually biased toward pickup. Why do you think pickup shouldn't be "pushed" as I suggest on people who haven't solved the dating problem? Why is a psychotherapist, or even just learning to act normally and getting a girlfriend in your social group, or even approaching a girl on the bus, a superior alternative? What are the cons in pickup that I'm not seeing?

Yes this is true, but if you're unable to make an accurate assessment on one source, using multiple will still reduce the risk by a lot. Then I guess you could also use AI to ask for the main perspectives in a field and explore the counterpoints they make. But this would be tedious and I don't know if I would have the wisdom to follow through and actually explore them right now. Even if your multiple sources are all biased they won't be identical anyway, and if you don't study passively, but instead try to find a solid overall coherence, any inconsistency between the sources is going to lead to more exploration, and if the sources are actually wrong, the inconsistencies should be more numerous. In a way, if you're really going after true understanding the issue shouln't be as bad.

@UpperMaster Oh, I'd add that cross referencing, or stydudying from lots of sources, will automatically reduce this issue 10 fold. Regardless of their quality. Even if you're totally ignorant and just use some basic judgment to filter out the basic crap. How could I not mention this! This is the simplest, most powerful solution, while more nuanced ones are the ones I talked about before. I've still not appreciated the full power of this, and it's reflected by settling for a single source too often. But every time I learn from multiple sources, even if the original source was Leo himself, it's so illuminating. I should really make it a requirement for myself to study deeply from at least 3-5 sources before even thinking of coming to any conclusion.

Yes it is. This is a fantasy. After years of zero success and lots of suffering good luck changing an incel's idea that "he just needs to act normal". His normal has failed him countless times. He needs to rewire his entire social system, and that requires practice, and the best way to practice seems to be pickup. Simple as that.

Then why do so many people struggle? I guess this would be your solution. But that's not aligned to the reality of many people, even if you don't know any of them, such people do exist. Just think about it, if it was so simple as you're saying, how come the dating industry is so huge? How come so many people talk about this weird red pill shit and don't realize "they just need to be normal"? Come on. Acknowledge the situation is more complex.

@Something Funny If it works for you, then great! In his series Leo talked about 6 ways to meet women. Pickup is one of them. By no means one needs pickup, nobody thinks that. There are pros and cons to each method. The most common is social circle, the one you're describing. But if you suck and social circle hasn't worked for you, because you suck with women, what do you do? You can A: create an awkward situation with all the women in the social group, who aren't that many anyway, so even the amount of practice you get is really low B: approach strangers, low risk, and if they reject you, you don't still have them around awkwardly. Plus, even if you're not awkward, social circle limits your options, and some people want more. Very important that you notice I'm not saying once that you must do pickup, and Leo did not say it as well. You don't have to do anything. It's just that when you analyze all the options, for certain people (not everybody!!!) it's the best way to solve the problem.

@UpperMaster Ok now I get more of what you're talking about. I found that quite hard. What helped me most was Leo's material on epistemology to be honest. If your goal is to assess the level of integrity of a person you need to know what integrity looks like and self-deception mechanisms, plus I noticed that unless I'm above or really close to that level myself, my judgment is not accurate, because in my direct experience I'm still to immature to evaluate certain people and their perspectives. I can learn from them, but the assessment of whether the perspective is a good one or not is not accurate. This is my experience with this problem. And my solution (I try my best) is to not come to conclusions too quickly (I saw in another post that you're familiar with not-knowing) and be ready to find myself being wrong and let go of that and change idea for the better. I make mistakes in judgment all the time but.. what can you do. The best I have is to not be attached to ideas.

@Happy Lizard try NOT making that jump. Seriously, try not learning how to talk to women at all. You may find that well, the problem doesn't get solved that way. "But I don't have a the mindset to go on such a journey! "I'll try a few approaches and that's it. Great, maybe 10 approaches". "Problem not solved, this is more serious than I thought! Ok I'll do 100 approaches." "Man I still suck!" And there you go, reality makes you conscious of the requirement, and the mindset naturally comes as a result.

@Something Funny Lol the point is that you can't get it without the skills. Don't underestimate the amount of people that can't get a girlfriend.

I feel this is too much of a black and white way of thinking about it. First, you're never going to have precise criteria to make this sort of evaluation, it's going to come from intuition and experience. You're never going to get a precise scale from 1 to 10, where above a 4 you listen and below it you don't. But on a more practical level, not every topic is polluted by integrity in the same way. For example, a chess world champion may be a rapist but provide the most amazing chess lessons. So even the content can be studied. The more the topic is "pollutable", the more careful you need to be. An even better principle to go by is that you shouldn't trust anyone's word anyway. Even a person who really values truth can have blind spots, sometimes out of simple ignorance about a topic. One of the most recent's posts on Leo's blog was just about the dilemma of understanding an ideology: either being detached but not understanding it fully, or being fully immersed but at a very high risk of becoming biased. In summary: You can learn from people with lower intellectual integrity in some cases High intellectual integrity doesn't mean perfect and always accurate So, always verify stuff in your direct experience anyway, since everybody is subject to self-deception. ----- Re-reading your post I noticed that maybe I didn't answer your question, so I'm making an addendum: you asked about their viewpoints, not about chess knowledge. In that case this: makes the most sense. But still, since everybody is subject to self-deception as I said, you can't 100% settle with the perspective of an individual with high intellectual integrity, you should still verify in direct experience and question everything.

Even if it is a grind you need to get to a decent enough level to fix the problem. Mastery may not be needed, but some level of efficacy sure is, regardless of how pleasant it is to get there. Or else that need for intimacy is going to rot inside and infect everything.

If you take 100 unexperienced and unskilled guys, how many of them get results with 100 approaches? Leo said it took 400 approaches to get laid once. What do we make of that?

This is not true though. Nobody teaches approaching and then goodbye lol. Leo's guide is called "how to get laid", not how to approach. And the advice in there covers approaching, creating attraction, building rapport, and having sex, and he explains why every step is necessary as well, even to get to a solid relationship. In the guide he also said clearly how the point is to end up in a long-term loving relationship. He also explained the pros and cons of multiple ways of meeting girls. I'm really not saying anything new. Doing 2000 approaches will contemporarily mean 300 dates, getting laid 20 times, or whatever, I'm making up the numbers. Plus, you approach a girl once, but if successful, the dates stemming from that approach could be multiple, as well as the times you have sex. I feel like I'm stating the obvious here. You're practicing the entire set of skills of attraction. Relationships are a different set of skills, and a single relationship provides plenty of opportunities to practice a plethora of skills anyway, without the need of having 100 girlfriends (again, stating the obvious).

@Pro24 Just try. It sure isn't unhealthy. Cold doesn't even give you fever. Fever can be a different matter, where physical activity especially can make it worse. But you can do everything with a cold. But all of this is useless advice, just try if you want an answer.